A Sea Change

It’s a new phrase – – sea change. It describes a situation where, suddenly, everything looks different. Ever been out fishing on a warm summer day? The water is smooth like a mirror, but with a sudden breeze the whole lake changes to whitecaps. Sea change.

So the Corona virus is a sea change. Just a few weeks ago we were looking forward to March Madness, class reunions, dinners out, concerts, graduations, etc. Suddenly it all changes.

I suppose we each have our own way of responding to this profound altering of life. For some, there is a little panic I suppose . . . toilet paper is temporarily in short supply. (Why toilet paper? Someone explain this to me please.)

Others like myself are SLOWLY beginning to realize the vast difference in everyday life. “What do you mean there’s no priest dinner this Saturday?” On a more serious note, some are staring at the loss of their job. How will they pay the bills? Oh dear.


There’s a sea change in the gospels. Jesus is crossing a lake (Mark 4:35) with the apostles. Suddenly what had been a smooth passage was fraught with wind and waves. And where was Jesus? “in the back of the boat, sleeping with his head on a pillow.” (!)

“Save us Lord!” they cried. (We get that, don’t we?) “Jesus wake up. Do you not care that we are about to drown?” Mark (4:38) The story ends with Jesus calming the wind and the waves but not before rebuking the apostles for their lack of faith in him. Did they not know they were safe so long as he is with them?

So what does Christian faith mean at a time like this? Is Jesus asleep in the boat? Is he even with us in this pandemic?

Some things our faith tells us:

  • These things happen. There are cracks in nature that occasionally bring about viruses, cancers, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. Why? Because nature itself is somehow disordered. It shares in the rebellion of Adam. “Through one man, sin entered the world. And through sin . . . death.” Romans 5:12. Okay? It’s a mystery.
  • This is not the end. How do we know? The signs of Jesus’s return have not appeared: the conversion of Judaism to Christ, the sun and moon doing weird things, the Anti-Christ appearing.
  • Don’t even trouble yourself with those “end” thoughts. Do your duty toward family and neighbor. God will take care of those big things.
  • Where is Christ in these nervous times? He’s with the parent who struggles to pay the bills. He’s with the senior who is weak and vulnerable. He’s with young people who wonder if it’s worth trying your best when it all seems uphill. He’s there because YOU ARE THERE as his ambassador. You bring Christ’s light in the darkness. Hope to those who fear. You bring Christ to others – – – YOU bring him! (How are you doing?)
  • Lastly . . . this too shall pass. When that day comes will we look back on how we have lived our lives with pride or embarrassment? Was there generosity, patience, good humor, kindness, OR did I spread fear, complaining, hoarding, selfishness?

So call your neighbor. Make sure they’re alright. Take some time (we seem to have quite a bit on our hands, don’t we) to pray . . . to read . . . to really talk with your loved ones. Above all, “Do not be afraid little ones. I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

– Fr. Tim

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Homer (not Simpson!) and the Sirens

There’s this scene in Homer’s Odyssey where the boat of our adventurer Ulysses comes near to the island of the Sirens. He tells his men to tie him fast to the mast of the ship so that hearing the Sirens’ seductive song he will be unable to fling himself into the sea toward them.

Dangerous rocks lay all about the island and to come too near meant certain shipwreck. It’s a great story (written 3000 yrs. ago). We call it “Greek Mythology”. Did it happen in actual history? No. It’s a myth.

But is it true? Of course it’s true. Is there a “song” that if you listen to it you’ll be tempted to abandon your ship? You bet. Just ask the alcoholic whose friends invite him to a bar for “a couple of cold ones”. Ask the teenager (hormones raging) who knows of a website where “you can see it all”. Imagine the hoarder who hears about “buy one, get one free”.

We all hear the Sirens’ call. They know just the song to sing to each of us to have us sail toward that rocky shore.


So what do we do? (We’re talking about temptation of course.)

The first thing to do is be aware of the power of temptation. It has the uncanny ability to get under or around our desire to do the right thing. It needs to be respected for what it can talk us into. Be smart. Know how strong temptation can be.

Next thing. Be prepared. Know where you want to go. Know where you don’t want to go. Before the Sirens start “your song” be like Ulysses, take measures that will help you resist. You don’t have to tie yourself to a mast (!) but do something to help you resist.

  • Let your friends know in advance that “you can’t go there”.
  • Use your computer in the living room where others gather.
  • Let a trusted friend know what your temptation is and ask their help (if only to listen to you and encourage you to keep up the good fight.) Ulysses asked his crew to tie him up!
  • Pray daily for help to resist the Sirens’ song. God will come to your aid. St. Paul says if all else fails, your resolve is gone. “God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength: but with the trial he will also provide a way out.” 1 Cor. 10:13 (the Spirit gives you a good idea to do in that moment).
  • Lastly . . . . RUN AWAY!!! Fleeing is a great way to defeat the Siren’s song. It’s not weakness to run. It’s wisdom. Someone yells “Fire!!” It’s not cowardice to flee!

Actually Ulysses was pretty lucky. He could have messed up big time. You see he had his men put wax in their ears so they wouldn’t even hear the Sirens.

He however had heard how entrancing their song was and he wanted to hear it for himself. So no wax for him! “I want to hear them sing.” (It’s called the “near occasion of sin”. Don’t go there.)

Lucky the mast held him back and he returned to tell his amazing story.

Homer (not Simpson!) and the Sirens We humans…..how patient God is with us.

Springtime blessings.
Fr. Tim

(This article appeared on June 11, 2017’s bulletin)

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Time To Say Thank You.

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind here at Holy Trinity. Special masses (funerals and Teen mass), Confirmation meeting and interviews, the Snow Ball Gala of course, etc. etc.

I am usually aware of all the people who help this parish through its paces. But this morning I’d like to tell the rest of us just a little of what goes on be- hind the scenes at Holy Trinity.

What follows is a shout out to all who make it happen. (No names. You know who you are.)

Thank you for:

  • Whoever puts the morning paper outside the rectory door!
  • For sacristans setting up the wine and water, chalice and candles for mass. Lectors, cantors, altar servers.
  • For our choirs and choir directors who help us pray at mass.
  • For our ushers who help us find seats (and take our money every week!)
  • For the Greeters who smile and welcome us to mass.
  • For all who sit on the committees that do such critical advising and stepping up. (Parish Council, Finance, Facilities, Liturgy, Cemetery Committees, Youth Advisory Board, Senior Advisory Board, Legion of Mary, Camillus, Dove, and the Maplewood ministries, Men’s Spirituality group, the Shawl and Knitting Ministries.
  • For the meals that parishioners drop off each week to keep Fr.’s John and Tim alive.
  • For our catechists teaching the children, our Pre- Cana Team for soon to be marrieds, + The RCIA and RCIC journeys of faith.
  • For the Parish Staff that does such a fine job ensuring the day to day care of the parish: the religious education of children, parent baptismal preparation, the office management, ministry co- ordination, the Parish Office that processes hundreds of calls each week, our Maintenance Coordinator and Assistant who keep our campus beautiful, for our regional and diocesan finance connection.
  • For Hope House that feeds and comforts hundreds and hundreds.

Had enough? Wait, there’s more.

  • Sanctuary care (linens and flowers), Office Volunteers.
  • Videographers, money counters, Bereavement Ministers, Martha Committee, Corpus Christi Ministry, Cursillo, Women’s Faith, Coffee Hours, CYO Coaches, Parish Picnic.
  • Vacation Bible School, Children’s Liturgy of the Word, Caregiver Support, our Website and Facebook Masters.

Whew!!! Thank you all. You make this place hum. (I’ve tried to include everyone but I bet I missed someone. Sorry.) And you know the best part of all of this? It’s a joy. “My yoke is easy. My burden is light.”

Want to help out? Call me or the parish office. If anyone tells you, “Thanks for wanting to help but we don’t need any, we’ve got this covered”, you call me. That’s not what we do here.

A blessed Lent to you.
Fr. Tim

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Faith comes from hearing.

If you’re going duck hunting and you want to get the flock to come your way, you’ll have to use a “duck call”. If you want to call a buck in the forest, you rattle some antlers. If you want to get a baby’s attention, you’ll use soft round tones and say their name.

These different attempts at communication are shaped by the recipient’s ability to receive the message. St. Thomas Aquinas captured this nugget of human truth six hundred years ago when he said, “Nothing occurs in the intellect (you can’t know anything) if it doesn’t come first through the senses.” Animals respond to biofeedback (heat, cold, hunger, sound). Humans respond to these same things, but having intellect they come to know things through sound—-think words.

This pre-condition for knowing has profound effects on our relationship with God. How can we hear the “Voice of God” who is pure infinite spirit? If you are an angel (pure “spirit person”) you have no body, no ears. There is no need to hear. Angels know things by “seeing” with their mind. In that sense they don’t have to learn; they get things immediately when their spirit “beholds” something. They know God immediately.

As for humans, God has made us in such a way that what we can know must first come to us through our 5 senses. Unless we see, hear, touch, taste or smell something, we can’t know anything about it.

So how then does God communicate to us? He does so by obeying the laws of learning we humans were given to know things. He comes to us through our human sens- es, primarily through seeing and hearing.

Abraham experienced a “vision” of God in which he and his wife Sarah “heard” of a promised child in their old age. What did he do? He believed.

Moses had a “vision” of God at the Burning Bush. He “heard” God say his name – “I Am”. And what did Moses do? He believed. (How you describe their seeing and hearing is a mystery – – no burning bush has ever spoken to me!)

In each case there was given this strange ability to “believe” that God was addressing them. And from that point on, whatever happened became “God’s plan”. Theologians call it “Salvation History” and it includes the events of human history interpreted with eyes and ears now open to what was heard through Faith . . . the bible.


St. Paul makes this literal connection between hearing and faith in the Letter to the Romans (10:14ff).

“But how can they call on him (God) in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in him if they have not heard? And how will they hear without someone to preach? . . . Thus faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes from the word of Christ.”

And in Hebrews 1:1, 2: “In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets (Abraham, Moses and Isaiah, etc.). In these last days, he spoke to us through a son, through whom he created all things.”

Of this Son, John the Apostle writes:, “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes . . . and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life made visible to us . . . What we have seen and heard we now proclaim to you.” 1Jn. 1:1

And what is this word that God speaks? It is the “Word made flesh”, Jesus of Nazareth.


God continues to speak the word of Jesus in the scriptures, the teaching of the church, and the voice of God that is our conscience urging us to “do good and avoid evil”, and lastly God’s word comes at times from the people around us. This is God calling out to us.

Lord give us the ears to hear.

Fr. Tim

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Are There Spirits Out There?

Are There Spirits Out There?

This will be a different bulletin article and not one I’m crazy about writing. It’s about “The Spirit World” and what we as Catholics believe about it.

Over my years as a priest I’ve had several people approach me (young and old) about an experience they’ve had with a spirit. They heard a voice or saw a shadow or silhouette in the room. Some have played with a Ouija Board and gotten “a message”. Some have gone to séances to connect with the spirit of someone now dead.

What are we to believe about such things and how are we to treat them?

First off the Bible and our Faith tell us that yes, there are intelligent spirits in the universe. They go by various names: angels, powers, principalities, demons. Both the Old and New Testaments testify to the existence of these “created” spirits in a realm beyond our human way of existing.

A familiar example would be the Angel Gabriel, who served in the classic capacity of an angel . . . “God’s Messenger” to Mary. We believe in the Guardian Angels given to each of us to watch over and protect. (Mt. 4:11, Mt. 18:10)

We also hear, of course, of “evil spirits” who, Catholic doctrine teaches are created spirits who failed the test of freedom to serve God prior to the Fall of Adam and Eve.

Okay . . . so the question for many is, “Can I get in touch with the spirit world?” Various reasons are given why someone would want this. 1. I want to know if my deceased loved one is at peace. 2. I’d like someone to tell me if I should make a change in my life or not. What is my future? 3. It’s fun in a spooky kind of way to entertain at a part.


Our Faith teaches us to be careful here. There is a danger for some well intentioned person to turn to the spirit world as a source of power separate from God.

A person begins to rely on incantations, séances, horoscopes, tea leaves and crystal balls to show them the future or answer life’s questions.

So what’s wrong with that? Simply put, it goes against our trust in God’s providence. God loves us and seeks a personal relationship with us as Our Father. Turning to a Ouija board to show us our future is telling God “he’s not enough” or “Trust in God but consult your Tarot Cards just to be sure.”

There are some things we aren’t supposed to know. God has chosen to keep some things hidden from us. For example – – when God will call each of us home. There is wisdom in this, knowing some things would keep us from living our everyday lives. “Not knowing” helps us turn to God in Faith and trust.

Psalm 131 tells us, “I have not gone after things too great for me. Like a weaned child on its mother’s breast so my soul lies within me.”

So trust in God. Be content in knowing what you know. Pray for those things about which you are concerned and know that God who “knit you in your mother’s womb”, Ps. 139, “knows what you need even before you ask”. Mt. 6:8.


Lastly. Are there spirits? Yes. Do they mess with us sometimes? Very seldom. (I think a rectory I lived in sometime ago had a very timid spirit living in the attic. Really I do. He stayed in the attic and didn’t bother me at all.)

You need to know, however, that any spirit owes its existence from God. God is not rivaled or challenged by spirits. God has complete charge of the freedom He gives to all his creatures and sets limits for them according to His good will.

In the end there is only one spirit to which our knees must bend – the Holy Spirit.

See you at the Snow Ball.

Fr. Tim

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At Home with Yourself.

W. B Yeats called it the ever “widening gyre” *. The image was of a falcon and the falconer who calls the bird to its roost. The bird has flown to a distance it can no longer see or hear its master. “The falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold.” The poem refers to the forces of history or culture that take a person and a civilization away from their true self.

Something like this happens in every age of history. Its effects appear in our culture today and our young people are most severely affected. We’re losing a sense of our center, our true selves, and what is most disconcerting – – we don’t sense the loss. The forces that separate falcon from falconer are many and complex. To keep it simple we can point to an imbalance of the “inner world” and the “external world”.

The inner world refers to that realization a person has of himself. His center. His likes and dislikes, personality, characteristics and values. It’s our soul, our center. It’s the “me” that turns when I hear my name called.

The “outer world” of course, is that environment outside ourselves; events, persons, circumstances in which we act and are acted upon. Some have called it “the daily grind”.

Between these two poles, my human life happens. I go out of myself to encounter the world and the people it brings. Then I return to the inner world and the conversation begins. “What was that? Why did that happen? Did I do the right thing?”, etc.

These two poles of life, the going out and the returning “home”, need to be in balance. The problem is the world with its unending chatter of social media, news and entertainment, overwhelms the “inner person.” There’s no home in ourselves to return to. We are in turmoil. Things fall apart.

In those rare moments when television or internet are turned off, we can grow restless or slightly embarrassed to be “alone with ourselves”. The sudden quiet catches us off guard and in the silence a weird feeling of being a stranger to ourselves comes over us.

To meet ourselves in such a moment can even frighten us. “Who is this person? It’s ME!!” Oh dear. Me. “What am I going to do with me?”

And so we check our email, text someone, see what’s on TV, phone somebody . . . anything to avoid being with myself.

This estrangement from ourselves has sad consequences for our relationship with God. How can we hear the voice of God if we can’t hear the voice of our own conscience. (that inner voice urging us to “do this.” Or, “don’t do that” Or, “good job!” Or, “shame on you.”)

Remember Jesus telling us “when you talk to God (pray), go to your room. Close the door. And pray to your Father in secret.” Mt. 6:5,6? Why in secret? Because the way God chooses to speak to you is as a friend. And friends give each other their full attention. A friend speaks personally to you like no other, many times quietly, just between the two of you.

In the quiet, over time, we return to ourselves and begin to hear things in our heart once again. I remember one year on retreat at a monastery walking down a country path. Suddenly it happened . . . I heard the wind blowing through the trees. I mean I HEARD THE WIND. I heard it because I was LISTENING.

Later on, if you continue to listen, you can hear the things your heart has wanted to tell God. “Lord, it’s me. I just want to tell you . . .” Many times it’s just being aware of your feeling and giving them to God “who sees.”

So how to end this? Get quiet. Put down the iphone. Come home to yourself. Reacquaint yourself to what you’re feeling, thinking, loving, fearing. Then. . . turn to Him. Speak anything (anything!) you want to get off your chest, be grateful for, need help with.

He is there. “Your Father who hears in secret. . . knows what you need.” Mt. 6:8

That is a promise from Christ. Trust Him.

Fr. Tim

*W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming

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No Lasting Home.

Back in the early 1950’s we lived on Bloomfield, a pretty city street in Akron, Ohio. Dad took the bus to work downtown and mom cooked, cleaned, and fed the three Horan children. I remember a big staircase we were for- bidden to slide down and a bedroom I had all to myself.

We rented the house for five years. Then one day, to surprise his wife, dad put $2,000 down on a little Cape Cod north of the city. Mom was furious in that she hadn’t been consulted; but with feelings repaired, the Horan’s moved into their first and only home. Dad was pretty proud. The American dream was coming true. (Mom had still to say goodbye to the dream of moving to Columbus to be near her large family.)

So we owned a home. That’s where I learned to ride a bike and Jimmy Farrell and I would explore the woods behind our street. Patty and Maureen did all the things girls do to grow up. 52 years mom and dad had that house.

I knew the day would come, but it totally shocked me to see the “For Sale” sign in our front yard when I drove back home to see mom (dad had been dead 3 years). “I have no home now”, was the feeling.


I’m sure many of you have a story to tell just like this. The point to be made is, something we all discover soon- er or later, we have no lasting home. St. Paul tells us that all things in this world are passing away (1Cor. 7:31) “Time is running out. From now on let those . . . who buy or own act as though they were not owning, those using the world as not using it fully.”

Why? Because we are renting this body, this space, this time, this home, this family, this parish . . . It’s all passing away. Nothing material is made to last forever. That means we’re here temporarily. We’re renting. We’re pilgrims on a journey.

St. Paul even calls Christians “strangers and aliens on earth.” (Hebrews 11:13) “Those who speak thus show they are seeking a homeland . . . a better homeland, a heavenly one.” vs. 16. This in no way lessens the beauty and wonder of the world and our responsibility to work for a better world here and now. “God so loved the world . . . “ (Jn. 3:16) So do we.

Our “passing through” has huge implications for how we use the things of the earth. Not being “owners” we are “stewards” instead. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us, “We possess external things not as our own, but as common, so that we are ready to give to others in their need.” Pope Francis in his encyclical, Laudato Si, reminds us that the goods of the earth (our water, air, forests, farmland) are given to each generation to be properly cared for so they might be passed on to the generations that follow.

When you think of it, everything we have has been given to us: our home (Mother Earth), our very lives, our family, our country, our skills to carve out our life’s story. And then . . . . . . there will come a time when we have to leave it all behind. We will pass from this earth to enter (once again by God’s gift) Eternal Life.

No more renting; we’ll be home. In the meantime let’s use this time to make this a better world for those who will follow.

Bless your Winter days.

Fr. Tim

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Praying Like an Adult. How to Start.

Praying Like an Adult

Not to sound overly dramatic, but I don’t see how any human being can stay faithful to a life promise (marriage, priesthood, doctor, president, pope) without at some time “saying a prayer”.

I think of my priesthood. Oh, I could have stayed a priest without praying, I guess. The perks are pretty good (free room and board, heated garage, pretty vestments). But without prayer, over time you become a shell of a priest, just going through the motions.

Husbands and wives, you know this too; anyone who tries to commit themselves to a project or a promise sooner or later runs out of gas. The promise you made way back now seems impossible or perhaps in your frustration it appears “unimportant”. “Why should I spend anymore sweat and tears on this darned thing that never seems to get any better?” Been there?


So why is prayer the answer to being “out of gas”? Because it reconnects us to the source of love and faithfulness . . . God. It takes us out of our empty, exhausted, defeated selves and lets us become children again. It lets us experience our neediness without embarrassment. Prayer calls out to God, who Himself has promised to watch over and help us in our times of trouble and emptiness.

“Come to me,” Jesus said, “All you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mt. 11:28) “Pour out your hearts to the Lord.” (Psalm 62) “Your Father in heaven knows your need, even before you ask.” (Mt. 6:8).


So it’s been a long time. I’ve been away from my childhood religion. I feel like I’m lost in a forest; how do I start praying like an adult? Do I rattle off a couple Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s? Okay. That’s a start. But there is so much more.

Here’s a couple thoughts that will help get you started.

  • Gratitude is a wonderful way to get you in the right attitude for praying. No matter what your current mood may be there are some things in your life that “you just know”. (For example, I know my mother loved me. I know my father’s advice about hard work has proved itself time and again.) And I know in the same way there was a time that God answered my prayer OR at least I’m aware He has blessed me with a gift I could never even imagined by myself. Even on a crummy day this thought lifts my spirit. Gratitude. It works every time.
  • Once you’re feeling a little gratitude, it leads to a moment of Trust. “You’ve helped me in the past Lord. So I turn to you now, please . . .”Trust that He will catch you as He has in your past.
  • Finally there’s the little matter of Surrender. Remember Jesus in the Garden? His whole world was collapsing. What was his prayer (after telling God his own wishes)? “Not my will, but yours (God) be done.”

All this points to prayer as a moment of personal speaking to God who “sees (and hears) you in secret” Mt. 6:6. It ought not rattle on with fancy or churchy words. (When the building is burning, “Fire!” is all you have to say).

Just speak from your heart, “Thank you Lord for the time when . . .” “Dear God you know what happened, please help me . . .” OR just . . . “Help Lord.”

  • Now just sit a minute. Don’t do anything. Like you’re on your porch listening to the evening breeze. Look out your window, whatever.
  • Lastly. Pay attention to the conversations and events of the week. They often contain God’s surprising answer to our prayers.

This brief conversation with God needs to happen everyday or as often as you can make it happen. If you do this for a while you will begin to experience in a wonderfully vague way(!) God’s presence with you.

Happy winter, eh?!
Fr. Tim

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Feelings . . . they need a guide.

We humans are such a complicated, changing, rational and irrational mix of thoughts and feelings. And yet these are the tools we use to guide our way through life. Which is stronger? Which is right?

As children our feelings are our only guide. Some things make us feel good – some things make us feel bad. So the child keeps doing the “feel good” till it doesn’t feel good any longer. (We all remember eating the whole bag of cookies/popcorn/candy till we got sick.)

Later on life has shown us that not everything that feels good is “good for us”. We learn the word “no” from parents who love us and want the best for us. We learn that sometimes it’s best to not follow our feelings. “No running by the pool.” “Don’t jump on the bed.” “No cigarette sales to minors.”

Most of these thoughts come from generations of trial and error. It’s a low form of what we call “wisdom”. How many of us have lamented that wisdom came too late? “I wish I knew then what I know now. Things would be different.”

So why do we have these feelings if sooner or later they trick us into some really bad choices? (Any tattoos you’d like to get rid of?)

It’s because at their beginning they propose to us a very good thing. Physical pleasure, emotional uplift, affection given and received . . . all these are fine, God given human desires. Feelings are what point us to them and secure them for us. Feelings are wonderful.

The problem is our feelings need a governor (or a cop). By themselves feelings are energy, desire, appetite. They are indiscriminate about what they are attracted to. They’ll chase whatever brings the desired feeling regard- less of the results. Feelings need to be taught their proper purpose.

And what is that? – – – – What’s true. This affection you feel . . . is it true love? The fun gathering of friends . . . is it true? The desire to have some new possession . . . does it serve a truth.

Meanwhile, joined as a twin to the truth is . . . the Good. If something is true, it’s good. If it’s good, it’s true. And what is the source of Good and True? God of course.


So goodness and truth are the guides for our feelings, for what we should want, what we should do. This will at times require us to say “no” to certain feelings. Not out of fear or repression but simply because they don’t serve what is True or Good.

Remember when Jesus was fasting in the desert for 40 days and nights? Matthew, Chapter 4 tells us “Jesus was hungry.” Bread looked pretty good to him at that point. Yum! “Order these stones to turn into bread”, the devil said to him. Jesus of course replied, “Not on bread alone does man live, but on every word that comes from God.”

So feelings. They’re God’s way of leading us to what is true and good, but they need the eyes of Faith to see clearly their proper end. Let us teach these things to our children and show them in the way we live our lives as adults.

God Bless You,
Fr. Tim

This bulletin article was written on January 24, 2016.

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Morality. Who thought that up?

(This is a lesson I gave to a class of high school Juniors. See what you think.)

Look around you at all the objects we use every day. They all have a purpose. The pen you have in your pock- et is for writing or drawing. The bowl in the kitchen is there to hold your cereal. Your shoes are there to comfort your walking. You get it.

There is a “purpose principle” that applies throughout the world of nature. The eye was made “to see”, the ear to hear, the hand to hold something. Things work well when they are used in the way the maker had in mind for them.

When used for other purposes the results are not so happy. Ever put your ear buds up your nose? You won’t hear the music and it can be painful !. No, things generally have a proper place and a proper use – – – That’s why they were made in the first place!

And guess what? It’s the same with you. You were made for a purpose. It’s the reason you are alive and living in this world. You have no wings to fly, no gills to swim the waters. What are humans equipped to do that no other creature or object can duplicate? What were you made to do?

Well you’re doing one of your purposes right this second! You’re trying to learn something. Humans can learn and understand how things really are. The human mind is the greatest masterpiece of nature unlike anything found anywhere in the universe.

The second human miracle you performed happened this morning. You kissed someone goodbye (mom, dad, brother, sister) . . . OR . . . later today you’ll call some- one to tell them YOU LOVE THEM.

These are the two great gifts God has given us to make us human. The Power to know and to love. These two abilities belong to Our Nature and make us different from the rest of creation. They make us PERSONS.

But how can I use my powers of knowing and loving in the way for which they were made? There’s all kinds of stuff out there to learn about. Some of it is fun and interesting. Some of it is dark and nasty.

What should I put in my brain that leads me to proper knowing and loving? What should I keep away from? The answers to these questions make up a body of knowledge we call MORALITY.

God made the human being something like God Himself. With our reason we are hardwired to seek what is true. With the power of judgement we can discern what is good and what is evil.

However, the human race has experienced a confusion and a clouding of human judgement (original sin). Along with a knowledge of what is true we also experience a selfish pull (temptation) toward whatever pleases me at the moment.

Reason and judgement must be properly guided if they are to function as God intended. Here are the guiding moral principles God gives us in determining right from wrong.

  • Natural Law. These principles are written into the very substance of our natural world. For example: moderation in what we eat or drink. How we treat our bodies. Respect for nature, its seasons, its treasury of air, water, plant and animal life.
  • The Ten Commandments. The 4,000 year old code of human behavior given through Jewish history and accepted in some form by every major world religion.
  • Teachings of Jesus. Christian morality contains the two above but adds the words of Jesus to move human behavior to even greater depths of love and goodness. EG. “Love your enemies, bless those who persecute you.”
  • The Teachings of the Church. Using all the above, the Church guides us to right behavior in many human situations EG. Care for the poor, proper sexual relations, sanctity of human life in the womb, the rights of workers, justice for the weak and vulnerable.
  • Wise and learned guidance by recognized authorities in the spiritual and moral life. EG. The growing opposition to the death penalty, increased awareness of a moral responsibility toward the environment.

No quiz. Just thought you’d like to know.

Fr. Tim

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